“I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on.”
Khader Adnan, Ramleh Prison Hospital – February 11, 2011.
RAMALLAH – Solidarity demonstrations for Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan culminated today in a three hundred man march, processing from the International Red Cross office in Al-Bireh to Al-Manara Square in downtown Ramallah, occupied West Bank.
The demonstrators turned out to support Adnan as he entered his 66th day without food in protest of Israel’s exploitive and illegal use of administrative detention and its inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Among the demonstrators today were several well-known Palestinian politicians, including Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, as well as Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi.
After gathering in Al-Manara Square, avidly chanting for over an hour, many of the protesters reorganized outside Israel’s Ofer Prison where they were immediately met with waves of rubber coated steal bullets and tear gas canisters. Two young men were arrested, and while one of them—Nidal Abu Ein—was shortly released, Mahmoud Ghassan, a journalism student at Birzeit University remains in custody.
Khader Adnan, a 33 year-old baker and post-graduate student was arrested on 17 December 2011 at his home in the village of Arraba near Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Like all administrative detainees, no charges were, or have ever been, officially filed against him.
Without trial, Adnan was sentenced to four months of administrative detention on January 8th. According to the Addameer’s Association for Prisoner Support and Human Rights, as of 1 January 2012, he represents just one of 309 Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli prison system under the auspices of administrative detention. Such widespread use of arbitrary and indefinite detentions is not permitted under International Law.
Today, February 21, just minutes before an expedited hearing was due to take place in Jerusalem, an unforeseen deal was struck between Adnan’s lawyer and an Israeli military prosecutor, permitting Adnan to go free on April 17 instead of the original date of May 8, and assuring that his administrative detention would not be renewed. In return for his early release, it is reported that Adnan agreed to end his hunger strike at 7:00 pm today.
“There is a deal,” an Israeli Justice Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters this afternoon, “(Khader Adnan) will stop his hunger strike. They will not extend his administrative detention and he will be free on April 17.”
However, Addameer notes that Israel has, in point of fact, left the door open for Adnan’s re-arrest, indicating “if new ‘secret material,’ upon which administrative detention is based, presents itself during the next two months, there would still be grounds for the renewal of his administrative detention order.”
In a press release circulated today, Addameer affirmed its call for Adnan’s “immediate and unconditional release and the release of the 308 other administrative detainees.”
Even if Adnan has truly agreed to end his hunger strike today, it is unknown whether he will fully recover from his over two month long period without food as such a length is likely to have irreparable consequences.
